Morris_Shatford wrote:aminiaturebuddha wrote:Their salaries are very similar, except that Gordon has another year (and an additional team option after that). So Houston could take on Dragic (and maybe Flynn and a 2nd if they wanted), and then buy him out and he could sign with a contender. Then Houston would have cap space and flexibility, and take about $19 million off their books for next year when they're clearly not going to compete anyway. Meanwhile the Raps get a good shooter, passable defender, and decent facilitator to help the bench in those minutes when Fred sits for this year and next.
It poses a bit of a cap challenge;
For the moment lets play with the Dragic and Gordan salary numbers because any ballast would likely be negligible (2m-ish)
Dragic + Anyone for Gordan opens up a bit more daylight between us and the tax threshold.
Therefore if we wanted to keep DJ Wilson it provides us a path toward that.
Where it becomes complex is July 1st;
Assuming we allow Boucher and all other FAs to expire w/ Gordan we are at 125m in committed salary for next season;
If you opt to keep Yuta or Boucher you are now likely over or near the 136m luxury tax line.
This is before you sign your FRP, Lets assume we are drafting between 10 and 20 you have somewhere between 2.2 and 3.6m for that.
Then any use of your exemptions puts you well into the tax.
Gordan certainly helps us today;
But that contract becomes complication to manage if we want to do anything in the offseason.
Thanks for crunching the numbers on that. Boucher's play of late may change the calculations on that, but I've been sort of assuming that the Raps won't look to retain him in the off-season. Not sure about Yuta at the moment. That would give them a bit more to play with, I guess.
If they renounced them both, I wonder if fitting a salary like Gordon's, along with the 1st round pick (the Raps don't have a 2nd this year) would allow them space with the exemptions to take a run at someone like Jalen Smith for the frontcourt and still stay under the tax.
I don't think we should expect major moves from the Raps, either at the trade deadline or in the off-season. But moves like that to help the bench would make sense if they don't go over the tax.
